unnecessarily foolish
by koolio19
Summary: An episode addition for the Haunting of Deck 12. It is the end of the episode from Chakotay's POV with of course some J/C added in. Please read & review!


**Unnecessarily Foolish**

**This is another episode addition, this time for The Haunting of Deck 12. It is the end of the episode from Chakotay's POV with a little J/C addition. Hope you like it. =)**

**And just so you know I don't own anything Star Trek Voyager and I borrowed some lines of dialogue from the episode. Don't sue me, please and thank you. **

_I turned around when I realized she wasn't following me and caught her looking down the empty corridor, immobilized by the fear of losing her ship. Her face was grim as her command mask momentarily slipped off, and the bulkheads reflected the flashing red-alert lights onto her, only adding to the dread I could feel rolling off her._

"_Commander, we're ready," I heard Harry call, as the last crewman had boarded the remaining escape pod. I was just about to call out to Kathryn when she finally turned, her mask firmly settled back into place as our eyes met. But before she could take a step towards me the docking bay doors swept shut with a resonating thud._

_For a moment I just stood there, confusion surely written on my face, but as that moment passed and the door remained closed a knot grew in the pit of my stomach. I rushed over to the illuminated panel on the wall beside the doors and punched the button that would open them - nothing happened. I hit it a few more times, but they remained firmly closed. _

"_Computer, open the docking bay doors," I called. _

"_Unable to comply," the female voice of the computer responded._

_I turned and quickly pulled off the bulkhead paneling beside the door to reveal the ships internal circuitry. As Harry ran up beside me, I pulled on the lever inside that would manually open the doors, but it wouldn't budge. Harry's hand joined mine, but the lever remained unmovable. _

"_What's wrong? Why won't it open?" I called to Harry as he began punching buttons on the illuminated panel. _

"_The seal on the doors won't release," he called back over the sounding Klaxons. _

"_Why?" I yelled back, frustration and worry evident in my voice._

_He shook his head and continued to push buttons on the panel as I continued to pull on the manual lever. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he turned to me, "Life support on the other side of the door has been compromised. Nebular gas is filling the corridor on the other side, sir," he said, fear distorting the professionalism of the young Ensign's voice._

_Fear gripped my heart stilling my hands for a moment before they continued to pull on the lever again with twice the force and desperation. _

"_You have to override that seal, Harry. Disable the computer if you have to," I yelled, as I continued pulling on the immovable lever. My mind was concentrated on Kathryn, who was suffocating on the other side of the door, and I'd be damned if I was going to let a six inch piece of metal stop me from getting to her._

_Suddenly, I heard a small hiss, and the lever easily pulled back, popping the doors open about an inch. Harry and I ran over and quickly pulled them apart far enough for me to slip through._

_The klaxons had quieted and the corridor was filled with the standard illumination of light as I stepped in, instantly seeing her on the floor, lent up against the bulkhead and gasping for breath._

_I ran over to her and knelt in front of her, taking her red face in my hands gently. Her small hands came up and tightly gripped my wrists, as her chest heaved trying to absorb the precious oxygen that now surrounded her._

_We stayed like that for a minute, just staring at each other, until I realized that a few of the crew had gathered behind us. I then lowered my hands to her upper arms, and she let her hands drop to rest on her knees. I couldn't take my eyes off her face, through, as she closed her eyes in relief and leaned her head back against the wall._

_Finally, her breathing regained its usual clam rhythm, and she opened her eyes. She raised a hand and squeezed my shoulder, a gesture of both reassurance and gratitude, before she began to stand. I held her steady, as she regained her balance, with a hand on the small of her back; if she thought it was unnecessary or out of line she kept her comments to herself, for which I was glad, as I observed her sway slightly._

_She instructed Harry to recall the other pods in a hoarse voice before allowing me, with surprisingly little argument, to lead her towards sickbay. Once we were out of the site of the crew, I wrapped my arm completely around her waist, noticing how heavily she was leaning into me as she walked. For once, at least, she realized when she needed to see the Doctor._

A jolt of the ship brought me out of my reprieve, and a moment later light once again filled the bridge. I reached over and turned off the lantern that had been sitting between Kathryn and I, as she asked for systems reports from the crew around her. When she seemed satisfied with the answers, she quieted and returned to her data pad.

A few minutes later, the turbolift doors hissed open, and Neelix stepped out, walking up to the railing behind Kathryn.

"How are the children?" I asked, to get my mind off of my previously daunting thoughts.

"Tucked in their alcoves, safe and sound," He replied with a smile.

"I hope they weren't frightened," Kathryn commented, as she turned around in her chair to look up at the Talaxian.

"Why would they be frightened, Captain?" he asked, in a shocked tone.

"They were in the dark for three hours," she said, with a small smile.

"No, not to worry, I told them a story to pass the time."

"Let me guess Mother Goose," Tom added from the conn, not wanting to be left out of the conversation.

"Certainly not, some of those fairy tales can be frightening – ogres and child eating monsters," he replied seriously.

Kathryn and I looked at each other with a smile, remembering the time we and some of the other senior staff had tried to explain some of Earth's fairy tales to Him. Neelix couldn't understand the human fascination with monsters and scary creatures, and he most defiantly didn't appreciate our enjoyment of such terribly frightening stories.

"Speaking of which," he continued, "is everything… okay?"

Kathryn nodded, "We're just taking some final readings before we resume coarse," she turned to ops, "Show him, Harry." The Ensign quickly had the nebula up on the view screen, so Neelix could see the creature we had just dropped off move from cloud to cloud around its new home.

"Well, I hope it lives happily ever after," he said with a curious smile.

Kathryn looked up at him with a smirk before turning around to acquire about those final readings on the nebula and the alien. When she was finished, she told Tom to engage on a course for Earth at warp six. Once everything was settled, she retired to her ready room, probably for that cup of coffee she had been denied for the past three hours. I smiled to myself, she had claimed waiting reports, which I didn't doubt, but that defiantly wasn't her first priority.

I was suddenly overcome with the urge to follow her, to be near to her, to not have a door be between us, but I forced myself to sit still, read reports, and converse with the bridge crew for another two hours until my shift ended.

I handed the bridge over to Tuvok, before making my way to her ready room door and ringing the chime. The doors parted quickly as she granted me entry, instantly easing my apprehension. She was sitting on the couch with a report in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. She smiled at me from beneath the halo of stars that swept past the view port behind her and offered me the seat beside her.

"Something on your mind, Commander?" She asked, once I had settled next to her.

"Yes," I replied softly. Then before she could register what was happening, her face was in my hands and my lips were on hers, kissing her deeply.

As we broke apart, her eyes danced with mirth as she looked up at me from behind her flushed cheeks and a radiating smile. She set down her report and half-filled coffee cup on the coffee table before wrapping her arms around my neck and leaning into my chest, her head resting on my shoulder. In response, I pulled her closer to me and consumed her tiny frame in my arms, happy to finally feel her beside me as reassurance that she was safe.

"Not that I'm complaining," she said softly, "but we're still on duty."

I shook my head, "Our shifts ended two minutes ago." I leaned in and kissed her temple softly, tightening my hands on her waist.

Her smile slowly faded back into her cheeks as sat up and looked at me while smoothing my hair back with a warm hand. The happiness in her eyes was soon replaced by concern and her hand dropped to rest on my chest. She always knew when I was troubled.

"You want to tell me why you stared at that same engineering report for three hours earlier?" she asked softly.

I sighed and looked out at the passing stars for a moment, before I lowered my gaze to her again. "I – today, just reminded me about how I almost lost you."

A frown wrinkled her face with sadness, before softening again. "But you didn't," she said, her voice soft but serious, as she held my upper arms firmly with both of her hands as if to convince me she was still there.

"I know that, but –" I stopped and took a deep breath. I didn't want her to think I was mad at her; I wasn't mad, I was frustrated. I was frustrated with her lack of self-preservation and her overabundant sense of duty and guilt.

"But what?" she said in a firm voice, as she leaned back. She knew where this was going just as much as I did. We've had this discussion so many times, but she just never seemed to grasp the concept.

"But you unnecessarily put yourself in danger," my voice was pleading with her to understand my side of this constant debate.

She quickly pulled away from me and stood up. "That door closed on me. I didn't trap myself behind it so I could purposely suffocate to death on nebular gas," her voice was laced with anger.

"No, but you were wearing an oxygen mask, Kathryn. Why didn't you use it?" I was on the verge of yelling, but I knew how thin these walls were and there was no need for the whole bridge crew to hear us fighting.

"I was trying to prove a point."

"Prove a point?" I looked at her in disbelief as I stood. "That's not worth your life, Kathryn."

"But it worked," she said defiantly as her hands migrated to her hips.

"Yeah, but you can't be that lucky all the time," I said, struggling to keep my voice low. She turned away from me and added a few steps of distance between us as she crossed her arms angrily. She knew I was right.

I gave her a minute to think, before I slowly walked up behind her and laid my hands on her upper arms, rubbing them up and down softly. She turned to face me and looked up at me with a sadness in her beautiful eyes, one that was mirrored in her voice as she spoke, instantly ebbing away my frustration. "I thought you knew what you signed up for. I thought you understood that my priority has to be to the crew, to being their Captain, your Captain. I have to keep you all safe; it's my responsibility. I can't just ignore that, because you're afraid to lose me."

I was my turn to realize that she was right. I reached up and cupped her cheek softly in my hand. She closed her eyes at the contact and leaned into it as I rested my head against her forehead. We'd had this fight so many times that we didn't even need to voice those reminders anymore; so we were silent, allowing reality to resurface. We thought of the ship and the crew and our constant duty to them both. That duty came far before the duty we had created between each other. I had to remember that our relationship would always have a professionalism attached to it; one that couldn't be ignored; not until Voyager's landing struts hit Earth's surface.

As Captain and Commander, we don't have the option to be selfish; we don't have the luxury of completely letting go. Too many people depended on us.

I sighed and opened my eyes to find her looking at me. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

She nodded her understanding, then leaned up and kissed me gently on the cheek. "Me too," she said as she pulled back.

"Just promise me something," I said.

She eyed me slightly before hesitantly nodding, "Okay."

I pulled her into my arms and held her tightly against me. She buried her face into my neck and wrapped her arms around my waist. "Just try not to do anything unnecessarily foolish," I said into her hair.

I felt her smile against me, "I'll try," she replied.

**Sooo? How'd you like it? Please, let me know by reviewing! =)**


End file.
